The Gilded Age

A Tale of Today

Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780486437927
• eBook ISBN: 9780486846484
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

It began as a dinner-party contest: when Mark Twain and his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner criticized the deplorable quality of their wives' reading material, the two writers were challenged to come up with something more intriguing. Thus, for the only time in his career, Twain collaborated on a novel with another author. The title of their rollicking 1873 tale became synonymous with the rampant post–Civil War corruption of Washington, D.C., where crooked politicians and greedy speculators vied with bankers and industrialists to enrich themselves at the expense of the working class.
Praised by historian Gary Wills as "our best political novel," The Gilded Age was among the first major American books to satirize the graft, materialism, and breakdown of public life. The subtitle, A Tale of Today, remains an accurate description of a declining democracy, in which enormous strides in industry and technology enrich only a tiny percentage of the population.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Squire Hawkins and His Tennessee Land—He Decides to Remove to Missouri
• 2. He Meets with and Adopts the Boy Clay
• 3. Uncle Daniel’s Apparition and Prayer
• 4. The Steamboat Explosion
• 5. Adoption of the Little Girl Laura—Arrival at Missouri—Reception by Col. Beriah Sellers
• 6. Trouble and Darkness in the Hawkins Family—Proposed Sale of the Tennessee Land
• 7. Col. Sellers at Home—His Wonderful Clock and Cure for Rheumatism
• 8. Col. Sellers Makes Known His Magnificent Speculation Schemes and Astonishes Washington Hawkins
• 9. Death of Judge Hawkins
• 10. Laura Hawkins Discovers a Mystery in Her Parentage and Grows Morbid Under the Village Gossip
• 11. A Dinner with Col. Sellers—Wonderful Effects of Raw Turnips
• 12. Philip Sterling and Henry Brierly—Arrangements to Go West As Engineers
• 13. Railroad Contractors and Party Traveling—Philip and Harry Form the Acquaintance of Col. Sellers
• 14. Ruth Bolton and Her Parents
• 15. Visitors of the Boltons—Mr. Bigler “Sees the Legislature”—Ruth Bolton Commences Medical Studies
• 16. The Engineers Detained at St. Louis—Off for Camp—Reception by Jeff Thompson
• 17. The Engineer Corps Arrive at Stone’s Landing
• 18. Laura and Her Marriage to Col. Selby—Deserted and Returns to Hawkeye
• 19. Harry Brierly Infatuated with Laura and Proposes She Visit Washington
• 20. Senator Abner Dilworthy Visits Hawkeye—Addresses the People and Makes the Acquaintance of Laura
• 21. Ruth Bolton at Fallkill Seminary—The Montagues—Ruth Becomes Quite Gay—Alice Montague
• 22. Philip and Harry Visit Fallkill—Harry Does the Agreeable to Ruth
• 23. Harry at Washington Lobbying for an Appropriation for Stone’s Landing—Philip in New York Studying Engineering
• 24. Washington and Its Sights—The Appropriation Bill Reported from the Committee and Passed
• 25. Energetic Movements at Stone’s Landing—Everything Booming—A Grand Smash Up
• 26. The Boltons—Ruth at Home—Visitors and Speculations
• 27. Col. Sellers Comforts His Wife with His Views of the Prospects
• 28. Visit to Headquarters in Wall Street—How Appropriations Are Obtained and Their Cost
• 29. Philip’s Experience with the Railroad Conductor—Surveys His Mining Property
• 30. Laura and Col. Sellers Go to Washington on Invitation of Senator Dilworthy
• 31. Philip and Harry at the Boltons’—Philip Seriously Injured—Ruth’s First Case of Surgery
• 32. Laura Becomes a Famous Belle at Washington
• 33. Society in Washington—The Antiques, the Parvenus, and the Middle Aristocracy
• 34. Grand Scheme for Disposing of the Tennessee Land—Laura and Washington Hawkins Enjoying the Reputation of Being Millionaires
• 35. About Senators—Their Privileges and Habits
• 36. An Hour in a Book Store
• 37. Representative Buckstone and Laura’s Strategic Coquetry
• 38. Reception Day in Washington—Laura Again Meets Col. Selby and the Effect upon Her
• 39. Col. Selby Visits Laura and Effects a Reconciliation
• 40. Col. Sellers’s Career in Washington—Laura’s Intimacy with Col. Selby Is Talked About
• 41. Harry Brierly Becomes Entirely Infatuated with Laura—Declares His Love and Gets Laughed At
• 42. How the Hon. Mr. Trollop Was Induced to Vote for Laura’s Bill
• 43. Progress of the Bill in the House
• 44. Philip in Washington—Visits Laura
• 45. The Passage of the Bill in the House of Representatives
• 46. Disappearance of Laura, and Murder of Col. Selby in New York
• 47. Laura in the Tombs and Her Visitors
• 48. Mr. Bolton Says Yes Again—Philip Returns to the Mines
• 49. The Coal Vein Found and Lost Again—Philip and the Boltons—Elated and Then Cruelly Disappointed
• 50. Philip Visits Fallkill and Proposes Studying Law with Mr. Montague—The ’Squire Invests in the Mine—Ruth Declares Her Love for Philip
• 51. Col. Sellers Enlightens Washington Hawkins on the Customs of Congress
• 52. How Senator Dilworthy Advanced Washington’s Interests
• 53. Senator Dilworthy Goes West to See about His Re-election—He Becomes a Shining Light
• 54. The Trial of Laura for Murder
• 55. The Trial Continued—Evidence of Harry Brierly
• 56. The Trial Continued—Col. Sellers on the Stand and Takes Advantage of the Situation
• 57. The Momentous Day—Startling News—Dilworthy Denounced As a Briber and Defeated—The Bill Lost in the Senate
• 58. Verdict, Not Guilty!—Laura Free and Receives Propositions to Lecture—Philip Back at the Mines
• 59. The Investigation of the Dilworthy Bribery Case and Its Results
• 60. Laura Decides on Her Course—Attempts to Lecture and Fails—Found Dead in Her Chair
• 61. Col. Sellers and Washington Hawkins Review the Situation and Leave Washington
• 62. Philip Discouraged—One More Effort—Finds Coal at Last
• 63. Philip Leaves Ilium to See Ruth—Ruth Convalescent—Alice
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C